I Know Who I Want to Take Me Home
by stereolightning
Summary: James and Lily have just gotten married. He's sad that he can't yell "hey Evans" at her anymore. The other Marauders have woes of their own.


_**A/N** A Jily Secret Santa fic for **pepperish**, who asked for something humorous. I hope I've delivered. Happy holidays!_

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Lily had kicked off her white wedding shoes after three hours of dancing. Now barefoot, with half her hair coming down, she sat on a stiff loveseat in the cramped bridal suite located off the corridor from the ballroom. James had his head in her lap and his legs draped over the chintzy arm. He looked up at her with adamant hazel eyes. They could hear the wedding celebration winding down – the clinking of dirty dishes being cleared away, the hollow sound of music playing to a nearly-empty room, the late-shift gossip of busboys and bartenders. Her bouquet perched on an end table, along with a sweating bucket of champagne and a crisp new marriage license printed on rolled-up parchment.

James raised an eyebrow at her. "One more? For old time's sake?"

"Go for it," she said.

"Alright. 'Hey Evans'."

"Hey."

He grinned, but then his grin faltered and he looked almost... sad.

"Well, damn. It's no fun if I shout 'hey Potter' at you," he said.

"That's the only reason I've agreed to this, by the way. Just so I don't have to hear that irksome little salutation anymore."

He grinned again. He looked madly happy. And trembly. He stared at her so hard she thought his face might explode. "Damn it, woman."

"Are you crying?"

"No. Yes. Sod off, it's a wedding, everyone cries at weddings. You cried three times already."

"Yes, but I am eight weeks pregnant and full of hormones. Oh my god, you _are_ crying."

"Yeah." His eyes leaked at the corners, and he squeezed them shut, wrinkling his nose, which popped the hinge of his glasses up by half an inch.

"Oh," she said, stroking his untidy hair, "oh, happy tears, though, right? You don't secretly regret this?"

His eyes snapped open and he rubbed his face. "What? No! Are you mad? Merlin. I'm just... "

"Overcome?"

"Yeah."

"That's all right, then."

He grabbed her hand and kissed the freckles on the back of it one by one. "Now _you're_ crying. Again," he said.

She nodded. She was. Quietly. And happily.

"I'll ask you the same thing," he said. "Do you secretly regret this?"

She shook her head.

"I mean, obviously... obviously under normal circumstances, we'd have waited," he said. "But."

"Times being what they are."

"And my having... botched the contraception..."

"This was where we headed anyway. We just got there a little ahead of schedule."

He made that intense, almost weepy face again. He looked a little unhinged. "Damn it, woman."

"I hope you're not going to start saying _that _instead of 'hey Evans.' I really must register my displeasure if you do."

"I won't," he said. He sat up and leaned against her, shoulder to shoulder. "Love you."

"Love you, too," she said, kissing his ear. "You big dumb deer."

He sniggered. "Tart."

"Prat."

"Priss."

"Tosser."

He took her hand again and started playing with her wedding ring, shifting it so that the diamonds caught the light, flashing orange and blue and pink. "How are you? Do you need anything? Water? Cake? Pregnant woman things?"

"Just you," she said.

"Give me your feet at least. Need something to do with my hands."

"Mmm. Yes. Fringe benefit of marrying a big Quidditch hero. The hands are never idle," she said, shifting so that her ankles were in his lap. He started massaging them, hard, drawing out the aches wrought by hours of dancing in heels. "Are you sure you won't have any champagne?"

"No. You can't have any. So I won't, either," he said.

"What if I ask you to?"

"Why d'you want me to drink?"

"I want you to have a good wedding. You shouldn't miss out on the fun things. You know as well as I do there's hardly any time for fun things, anymore."

He shook his head. "I'm not letting You-Know-Who dictate the terms of my existence. I'm still doing what I want to do. And what I want to do is be in solidarity with you, and not drink tonight. Besides, it's highly amusing to watch our friends get drunk without us. I've never actually done that before."

"Agreed. Did Remus snog that waitress?"

"He did go into a dark corner with her. And he was making her laugh. A lot."

"Oh, I hope he did. He's ridiculous about women. He always thinks they're after Padfoot. It never occurs to him that anybody would want him for his own sake."

"You'd have done. You liked him more than me, at school."

"Mmm. I don't know about that. He is a lovely friend. He'll make somebody a nice husband. Unfortunately, I seem to go for the bad boys." She tapped his nose with her finger.

"And you wouldn't rather have married Padfoot? He is extremely bad, and quite good-looking. Not sure if you noticed."

"Padfoot's already taken."

"Is he?"

"Oh, yes. I think he's only ever loved one person."

"Who?" he asked, mystified.

"You."

"Oh." He chuckled. "Yeah. Well, I never had a brother. And his whole family are – you know. And when he ran away, he lived with me. So we're family, more or less."

_Family. _That was what this whole thing was about, right? And yet, so many of them absent. On both sides of the aisle.

For a long moment, neither of them said anything, and the tinny scrapes of salad forks and dessert spoons being put away were the only sounds.

"I'm so sorry about your parents, James," she said at last.

"Don't." He squeezed her ankles. "I know they approve. They liked you."

"I liked them, too."

It had been only a few months since they had died. First his mother, then his father. Some people just couldn't live without one another. But Lily had met them, and she had liked them. They were a lot older than her parents, and eccentric in the way wealthy, well-travelled people sometimes are, but they were kind, and they really had tried to do right by their son. Even if they had spoiled him a bit in the beginning.

"You're my family now as well," he said. "You and the little bean."

"And Moony and Wormtail."

"Yeah. And I know you're upset about Petunia not coming. And I'm sorry."

She sat up and sniffed and more of her dark red hair came loose from her hairpins, flopping onto her shoulders in fat ribbons.

"Oh, damn it. I'm sorry," he said. He pulled her closer, into his lap. "It's not fair. That she's awful to you about what you are. It's the same as Death Eaters, just the inverse."

She dabbed her eyes and frowned at him. "Don't compare her to them. She's still my sister."

"Alright, sorry, overkill. Shouldn't have said it like that. But it is wrong, judging someone by what they are and not who they are. It bothers me. Here, your mascara is running. You look like a badger." He wiped her eyes with the pads of his thumbs.

"And you didn't just marry a Muggleborn to prove a point, did you?"

"No. I'd have married you if you were a pureblood. Or a Muggle, or a werewolf. I draw the line at centaurs, though."

She chuckled through her sniffling.

"Nice beings, centaurs, but I can't work out how to get one up the stairs to my bedroom, so – "

She kissed him just to shut him up. He laughed, and the sound vibrated through her lips, and she laughed, too.

"Found you!" said a familiar, enthusiastic voice.

James and Lily broke apart. Sirius leaned his long frame against the open door, his black tie undone, a smear of crimson lipstick along his jaw. Several of his buttons had been done up the wrong way.

"Always with the snogging, you two. Well, that's not true. It used to be hexing and name-calling. But you know what they say about a pair of nifflers in a bag. Leave them in there long enough, and they'll either fight to the death or fu –"

"Padfoot, come and sit with us," said James, patting the place next to him on the loveseat.

Sirius scooted in next to James. The loveseat was already too small, and the addition of a third body made things untenable.

"Beautiful wedding," Sirius said, and hiccuped. "You look pretty, Bambi."

"How much champagne have you had, darling?" Lily asked.

Sirius waved his hand in the air – a sloppy, noncommittal gesture, which only emphasized how utterly pissed he was.

"Oh, no. Probably shouldn't Apparate home on your own, then," she said.

Sirius fell across both of their laps. His long hair was damp with sweat at the back. Lily had the impression that not all the sweat was his. "Oh my god, Prongs. You're _married_. And having a _baby,_" he said.

"I'm aware," said James, amused.

"It's lovely. And sad. You're all alone in the world, like some Dickensian orphan, and now she's married you and she's going to have a baby with you, and now you won't be alone anymore. And a lucky gaggle of kids will have you telling them all the secret passages out of the castle, and oh, Prongs. Oh, Bambi. I think I might have a cry about it."

"You wouldn't be the only one," said James, patting Sirius on the head in a manner that was only slightly condescending. James winked at his wife. He was having fun being the sober one.

"Have you got frilly knickers on?" Sirius asked, lifting the hem of Lily's wedding dress.

She kicked his hand away, the silk zipping through his limp fingers. "Git," she said.

"What? I've seen both of you naked before," said Sirius.

"By accident," said James.

"Not my fault. That image is burned into my retinas forever. You two insisted on shagging in the dormitory, which is ridiculous, because everybody knows you're supposed to shag in the broom closets or the dungeons. So unadventurous of you. Anyway, you're married now, and James is practically my brother, so that makes you my sister, Bambi, and I may come from horrible inbred pureblood stock but I am not going to lust after my own sister. I just want to know about the knickers. Are they fun?"

"Yes, they are fun," she said, surreptitiously nudging her husband's ankle. The gesture and its subtext were not lost on James. He shot her a look of boyish glee tempered by some very husbandly excitement.

"Padfoot, I think it's time we called the Knight Bus to take you home," said James, sitting up straighter.

A polite knock came at the open door.

"Hello, Potters. I see you've adopted a pet," said Remus, who stood in the doorframe, looking uncharacteristically smart in borrowed black robes.

"He's not very well-trained," said Lily, "but we like him."

Remus smiled at the three of them, in that wistful, Moony way. "_Somebody_ was supposed to meet Peter and me at the Leaky Cauldron so we could all drown our bachelor sorrows together."

"I was going to. I got distracted," said Sirius, now toying with the lace on Lily's sleeve.

"I can see that," he said, his eyes lingering over Sirius' undone buttons. "Go and fetch the rest of your clothes, Padfoot. I'll take you with me."

"Mmng. All right," said Sirius, getting to his feet. He balled his hands on his hips and gave James an imperious look, and for a moment, you could see the centuries of Black family haughtiness in the angles of his face. "Hurt her, and I'll end you. Same goes for you, Bambi. That's my best mate you've just married."

"Love you too, Padfoot," said Lily.

"Yes, we get it. Be happy or else," said James. "Goodnight. See you Thursday."

Sirius staggered into the hall. "Where's my fucking cummerbund?" he yelled, his voice magnified by the vacantness.

Lily snorted and covered her mouth. Remus gave a tight-lipped grin and a half-hearted little roll of his eyes.

"We are all very happy for you," said Remus.

"Ta, Moony," said James.

"You are brave, and beautiful, and your love inspires us all to go on living in spite of terror," said Remus.

"Oh, thank you, Remus. You're next, you know," said Lily.

"For what?" asked Remus.

"Matrimony. Domestic bliss. Babies," she said. "I saw you talking to that waitress. I'll be disappointed if you tell me you were just recommending books to her."

He shook his head and glanced at his shoes, pinching his eyebrows together. A heartbeat later, his wince melted, replaced by a wry smile. "I must be off. Poor Peter is sitting there alone. A hag was trying to chat him up when I left."

He turned. Lily threw her bouquet at him as he went for the door. It landed at his heels with a soft thud and a shower of bright pink petals.

"You're incorrigible!" he called, spinning around just enough to flash her a warm grin before gliding out of view.

She knew he had Disapparated with Sirius a moment later, because a delicate popping sound echoed off the walls of the deserted ballroom.

"Sometimes I get the feeling I'm married to all four of you," said Lily, crossing her arms in mock irritation.

"No, you're married to _me_," said James, affecting a face of deepest concern, as if worried she might be unclear on the details. "But you do get to be _entertained_ by all four of us. Four for the price of one."

"Oh, what price is that?" she asked, batting her eyelashes coquettishly.

"Damn it, woman," he said, his pupils magnified with desire, his breathing fast and shallow.

A light clicked off in the ballroom. Shadows bloomed outside.

"Hey Evans," he said.

"Hey what?"

"Hey. Lily. Potter. Let's go home."

And then, after she had stuffed her very sore feet back into her very pretty shoes, they did just that.


End file.
